


caught sleeping in the power sockets

by charcoalsuns



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Training Camp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 00:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6305734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charcoalsuns/pseuds/charcoalsuns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kenma has his routine, his friends, and his games (virtual and volleyball). With a series of encounters and a bit of venturing forward, he adds something new to each of them.</p><blockquote>
  <p>It isn't just a <i>reflection</i>, who he has come to know. And here, under the modest veil of night, the thin armor beneath his skin dares to crack in answer, just enough to let the moonlight through.</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	caught sleeping in the power sockets

**Author's Note:**

> Sometime toward the end of December, _someone_ tweeted something along the lines of "consider: Ennoshita and Kenma together, sitting down and having a quiet chat about why Ennoshita quit, and why Kenma didn't," and I considered, and had feelings at her, and the next morning there was an empty document open on my computer. So, thank you to Lark for putting that idea into my head, and I'm so excited to finally be finished with this because now I can read her fic of the same idea, at long last!
> 
> (Edit: I am very gently in love, [please read](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5649583), it is so vivid and graceful.)
> 
> I meant for this to be a single scene. I don't know how it turned into me trying to explore parts of Kenma's character and things and people important to him, but after three months working on it, the result is. a bit more than a single scene. 
> 
> Title from the Freelance Whales song "[Ghosting](https://soundcloud.com/freelance-whales/freelance-whales-ghosting)," which had absolutely nothing to do with this until I took a small break from frantically re-rereading it and switched to frantically listening to my iPod, which is when the line stood out to me, soon followed by the rest of the lyrics ^^;;

  


Kenma has never taken part in a goodbye quite like this one. 

The clouds are turning a tired red from the sun beginning to set behind them, and a small flush has risen to Kenma’s cheeks – from the day’s warmth, from the cheerful shouts and waves of _next time_ that linger above the seams of the pavement. 

He doesn’t know how likely it is, for both of their teams to make it through the preliminaries for Interhigh. He doesn’t know if they would get to play each other if they did. In their team members, they have a foundation to strengthen; in the faded, dusted-off memory of a rivalry and a battle like no other, they have an open roof, a sky above them. But their hometowns are crowded, and every other team they will need to surpass lies in wait, one step rising behind another, just around the corner. 

Still, despite the odds, there’s an even beat to his heart, one that wants to reach the certainty with which Shouyou has promised him otherwise. A win or a loss, Kenma doesn’t know. He can take either as it comes. 

Before they go, Kenma chances a look back at Shouyou’s team. He tries not to meet anyone’s eyes, though in trying not to, he inevitably does, and he startles when he catches someone unfamiliar looking back at him. Unfamiliar, but unthreatening, and Kenma watches as the boy’s polite smile nudges into something a little wider, a little brighter, as he nods once from behind the rest of his team. His hair is parted neatly at one side of his forehead, falling evenly and unaffected by the occasional ruffle of wind. It isn’t long enough to cover his eyes, half-closed under the muddled clouds. He looks tired, too. 

As Kenma and his teammates leave the grounds of the sports park at Karasuno, they turn back toward each other, their hands lowering to rest in pockets and on the tops of zippered bags. Even Tora has quieted, some, wiping the snot from his face as he walks, though he undoubtedly has noise to spare for both the bus to Sendai Station and the train ride back to Tokyo. 

Sure enough, they’ve barely made it through the gates when Tora starts up again. He’s saying something indignant about ice cream to Inuoka and Shibayama, clutching his tearstained sleeves to his chest with all the emotion of whatever it is, and judging from the slight clench Kenma can see in Kuroo’s jaw, he is probably seconds away from receiving a talking-to. 

Kenma blinks down at the cracks in the sidewalk. No one is shouting in his direction now, and he breathes out a sigh that won’t be heard over the shuffle of their footsteps.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Some days, the combination of school and multiple practices tires Kenma out, and he doesn’t feel like hunching over his PSP on the train. He straightens his back against the covered seat, leans his head on the brushed chrome wall, and lets the rumble of the swaying cars echo through his limbs. He sits still, but he cannot fully relax. The stark overhead lights superimpose his reflection in the thick glass of the opposite window, his figure a faint, fixed image atop a darkening city. Flashing past are glimpses of yellow office lights and steel shadows, and surrounding them, masses of distant buildings roll slowly out of sight. 

At the next stop, a man in a business suit strides in and takes a seat across the aisle. Engraved buttons on his sleeves shine like the brass of an executive name plate as he sets his briefcase down with a _thump_. Kenma lowers his eyes, shifts his feet soundlessly on the floor, and reaches for his phone. 

_Subject: next week!!!!_  
_we’ll be in tokyo again next week!!!!_  
_i’ve been working really hard!!! we all have,_  
_and we’re definitely gonna surprise you!!!!_

_Subject: RE: next week!!!!_  
_yeah…_  
_you always do_

Shouyou hasn’t replied yet, probably still hard at work though his team practice has most likely ended, too, so Kenma exits his message screen and scrolls sideways through his games, though he doesn’t select any of them. He just needs to hold something in his hands for his attention to rest on, a device to keep his gaze from wandering over the people around him. Many of the other passengers fall asleep soon after boarding, exhausted from their own days at work, but Kenma can never be sure when any of them will open their eyes, or whether they will take unkindly to being observed. 

For the most part, he will be ignored; Kenma knows this, knows that a few narrowed glares scattered across years of travelling to and from school do not mean that anyone is really giving him more than a single blink’s consideration. Everyone is occupied enough with the immediate concerns of their own lives, and no one has the energy to spare for a brief, anonymous encounter on a train ride. And even if they did, it shouldn’t matter; he most likely won’t see them again. 

All the same, he can’t help but to wonder what his reflection looks like in reality, to flick a glance upward when someone walks in front of him, just long enough to make sure they’re not looking back. 

Kenma lets his hair fall across his eyes. Four more stops, a fifteen minute walk, and he’ll be home.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


“Have fun!” 

Kenma’s mother waves, closing the door to the kitchen behind her. Her footsteps are steady against the warm wood of the hall, as light and comforting as the hand she used to run through his dark hair. And still does, sometimes, with a silent, fond smile at the pronounced boundary gradually spreading from his roots. 

She keeps her hands in the pockets of her sundress, now, watches as he picks up his bag after putting on his shoes. The corners of her eyes fold gently at familiar angles, tiny rays to the gold they share, and Kenma softens his expression in answer. 

“See you,” he says, and carries a bit of the dawn with him before he walks outside.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Kuroo meets him on the way as usual, catching up with a call of _Kenma!_ that soon turns into a yawn as they walk past lowered steel shutters and locked doors, past uncovered storefronts with signs still flipped to _closed_ in their windows. Shinzen is less than an hour away from Nekoma, so it isn’t that much earlier than the time they’d normally set out for practice, but this morning’s breeze floats lazily over the pavement, and for a while, neither of them want to break the quiet. 

Kenma picks at a piece of lint that has stuck itself into a corner of his jacket pocket. Even with the sun still hidden, undisturbed, below the roofs of apartment buildings, it’s too warm. But he’s already wrapped his sweatshirt around his PSP to stuff it into his bag, among extra t-shirts and towels and his volleyball shoes, and there isn’t any more room for his team jacket. He’d rather not carry it, so he’s left to wear one more layer than is really comfortable in the hazy, beginning traces of humidity. 

Kuroo yawns again. He draws his breath out, thin and blurry, but Kenma knows he’ll be wide awake when they get to school. He and Kai will make sure everyone and all of their bags are loaded safely onto the buses, and on the ride up, toward their full week of day-long training, there will be excitement flowing as unobtrusively as blood through his relaxed limbs. 

_A full week_ … Kenma isn’t really looking forward to it. Not to the bruises, nor the merciless way his stamina will be tested, nor, in truth, the games themselves. But he is part of the team, and even while the increased practice sears into his muscles like summer’s first heat wave, this is a tradition he will acquiesce to. 

There will be over a hundred people at the camp, and Kenma won’t know most of them. In this situation, though, he doesn’t mind so much, because at least when they look at him, he knows the general tone of what they’re thinking, and the minimum of what they want from him. At least, he knows, they’re all there for the same purpose. And as he and Kuroo make their way through sleeping streets and toward the school gates, the spectre of unease that endures beneath his skin settles down, an invisible shield, neither truly gone nor fully present.

  
  
  


* * *

* * *

  
  
  


The hallway is dim and empty, a loading screen between one day of bright, tiring practice matches and the next. From the outside courtyard, a lamppost joins with the moon to offer the only light, faint and angling through the windows, catching on their locked frames before spreading across the cool, dustless floor. 

Kenma walks through the insubstantial light, PSP in hand, recently released _Musou Orochi 2_ port slotted in place. With his console’s volume at zero, even through doors and the slide-step of his slippers he can hear the muffled shifting of blankets and futons, the low voices and occasional laughs as everyone winds down for the night. 

There’s a stairwell not far from the classroom where his teammates are either asleep or close to it, and Kenma figures he can stay up for another couple of hours without affecting his performance tomorrow. He takes a seat to one side of the second step from the bottom, sliding his feet forward so he can rest his elbows on his knees. _INTO THE FIRE,_ the screen announces, and the night around him fades into a quiet, static background as he focuses on the game. 

The year is undetermined but dire. There is a danger that threatens the world order. The hope of humanity’s future rests in their heroes, who so valiantly take up the challenge, who have the utmost faith in their combined strength and swear to give everything they have in their power to the perilous confrontation ahead of— Kenma skips past each line without a second thought. The dialogue contains little information he needs to know and none he won’t find in the game itself, and it barely varies from one introduction to another. It is just a precursor to every menu screen. 

He accepts all of his character missions, sets his fingers at ease over worn buttons, ready to strike at his command. Presses down to highlight the last option in the list: 

**_> > Begin battle_ **

The cracked and burning cave floor is a court in his hands, and at the edges of the screen, momentary flares of data return the state of his team: gradually depleting health, steadily charging _musou_ power. He takes both into swift account as he adapts his attacks to the swarm of demon soldiers around him. 

_Normal, normal, charge,_ and he slashes his way forward, enemies falling back with arms flung wide and useless as his bolts of conjured lightning strike them down. Their defeated bodies vanish from the terrain before they even hit the ground. 

A comfortable rhythm absorbs his movements, a silent, impartial atmosphere around the screen and controls, an undercurrent of a thrill that Kenma has never felt anywhere else. It takes a certain balance, he’s found, between the _programmed_ unpredictability he faces in this kind of combat and the number of actions he arranges in order to counter it. His choices are limited, and his mind works quickly, sometimes forming strategies, other times simply pressing onward in the knowledge that whatever comes next is, without a doubt, a conflict he can handle. 

The area just ahead is clear, and he spares a glance at the map to confirm the direction of his next goal. He continues running, eager for the next fight, but before anyone can appear to swing their weapons for him to parry, a noise jolts him back – to the muted hallway, the moonlight, the hard edge of the stair above him pressing into the small of his back. 

Kenma pauses the game, and leans forward to look around the corner. 

It only takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the change. A few classrooms down, where Shouyou’s team is staying, if Kenma remembers right, someone is sliding the door closed behind himself. Though his movements are careful and quiet, the night is even quieter, and the sound is the loudest Kenma has heard in the past hour or so that he’s been sitting on the stairs. 

Through the soft sweep of his fringe, Kenma watches as the boy walks the few steps across the hall and into the thin, fragile light from the window, looking down at a book held open in his hands. He rests his hip against the sill, an afterthought, tilts the book this way and that, as if trying to capture an image of the courtyard within its pages. His fingers smooth over the text as he reads. 

Before long, he shakes his head; he unbends his neck, straightens to stand on even feet, and as he closes his book, the whisper of paper seems to echo through the still air until it rustles in Kenma’s ears. 

The boy raises a hand to his temple and pushes his hair from his forehead. It falls back immediately, dark strands indistinguishable from their shadows, settling in place like they’d never been moved at all. When he laughs, down toward the book there is probably not enough light to read, it is an almost soundless breath, caught in his teeth and in between a snort and a sigh – and Kenma remembers him: a wordless goodbye, an unexpected moment of calm under a wispy, orange sky at the beginning of May. 

_Oh,_ he thinks, _hello again_. Kenma shifts his feet close on the step below him and retreats behind the corner of the stairwell, leaning back to return to his game. 

Some time later, the final demon warrior lies dead in a rough circle with the other seven. Kenma’s team of three stands victorious in the center, and around them their slain enemies disappear, corpses dissolving into wafting purple clouds of what might be smoke, or might be dark spirits, left to their own will without hosts to contain them. 

Kenma saves his progress and shuts off his PSP. He emerges into the deserted hallway, meeting no one but his own silhouette, cast onto the wall beside him, and hearing nothing but his own footsteps as he heads off to bed.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


“Training camps are _so cool!_ ” Shouyou says, eyes shining in the sunlit corridor, awestruck as he looks up like Kenma is the one who invented them. 

“You said that yesterday morning,” Kenma answers, “as soon as you got off the bus. And yesterday night, too, when you showed me the room your team was going to sleep in.”

“Well, I was excited!” Shouyou’s grin doesn’t dim in the slightest as he faces forward again. “I’m still excited! For sharing a room with my teammates, for having breakfast with everyone, for getting to play in lots of practice matches against all of you— for everything! We’re gonna work hard and we’re gonna get stronger and we’re gonna fight all the way to nationals so we can play against you for real!” 

Kenma glances sideways as Shouyou continues talking. He thinks about odds, and odd proclamations, and the way Shouyou’s feet seem to have coiled springs for bones. Shouyou breathes an enthusiasm as intense as any nationals-level player Kenma has ever faced, the same limitless drive for _more_ , the same hunger for victory – one that just a month ago left Kenma staring motionless at his phone as the minutes ticked past, unpausing, in the wake of a single, hollow text with no punctuation; one that lives on in the small body who is still standing tall, still just a step away from flying into the air. 

Kenma moves his hair out of his eyes, and lets some of that appetite spark curiously inside his ribcage, somewhere far from his stomach. He wonders if it will catch.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


The next time Kenma sees the boy with the book, he isn’t holding a book, and as he passes with empty hands through the hallway that meets the stairwell, his figure catches the weak light of each window. He seems to glow and blur at the same time. 

When he meets Kenma’s eyes, he stills; it is only a moment’s pause, fleeting as the last second of a countdown before a battle, and then he is moving again, stopping a short distance away with a neutral sort of recognition in his expression.

“Hello,” he says, “I saw you sitting here yesterday, but I wasn’t sure if… well, I didn’t want to disturb you.” He smiles, an apology, the kind that might be accompanied by an unsure hand to the back of a neck, but his gaze continues to rest on Kenma, sitting before him with a just-paused game, and his arms are held still at his sides. “I didn’t think anyone else would still be awake.”

His voice treads softly, a whisper of an undertone carrying his words in a way that seems to belong in the night. He waits, patient, unassuming, as though he will accept any answer Kenma gives to the questions he did not ask, even if Kenma says nothing at all. He waits, but does not expect anything. The ground is even, two paces between them with a spotlight shining elsewhere, and the air feels mild as Kenma offers a reply. 

“There’s a new character,” he says, lifting his PSP with a minimal bend of his wrists. “I… want to build up his bonds with the others, but… I don’t have the chance to play during the day.” 

The boy lets out a breath, a laugh, perhaps, though Kenma doesn’t think he’s said anything funny. “That’s true, this camp does keep us busy.” He pauses. “I— We’re really grateful for the chance to train with you guys.”

“It’s nothing,” Kenma mumbles, looking down again, though he knows this week is anything but. Nekomata had gathered them up one day at practice and told them about the difficulties Karasuno faced, in the years after their previous coach retired. He’d talked to them, once more, about a rivalry written by fate, about the choices they could make to meet it, and that very morning, he had reached out to the other schools in the Fukurodani group with a hope and a request. 

_We’re going to make it happen,_ Kuroo had said to them, a rare, serious authority in his tone, and that destined endgame remains in the backs of their minds as they keep their sights aimed forward. It is the same for Shouyou’s team, Kenma knows. But on the more fundamental level of a training opportunity that is easy for some to take for granted, to them, this week means even more. 

“Um,” the boy says, his fingers suddenly darting in toward his palms. If Kenma were looking anywhere else, he might have missed it in the dark. “I’m sorry, I should have— I’m from Karasuno.”

Kenma isn’t sure how to respond. “I know…” he says. “Number six,” he adds, because the boy had played in place of Karasuno’s number five during a set against them that afternoon, and Kenma had watched his movements – careful, considering, the same as he did for everyone else on the other side of the net. 

When Kenma glances up, the boy’s eyes have widened in reply, his shoulders easing back the faintest amount as a small grin lights up his face. “Yes,” he says. “My name’s Ennoshita. Ennoshita Chikara.” 

There’s an odd spike of _something_ as he speaks, then, a falter that catches itself just as Kenma recognizes the sound. He wonders if he’s imagined it. 

“Kozume… Kenma.” 

“Number five,” Ennoshita says, and his laugh is true and soft and unremarkable. Though, Kenma supposes, it’s nice – like his voice, and it unfurls like a map at the start of an unknown game. “It’s nice to meet you properly, Kozume-kun.” 

“Oh… yeah.” Kenma isn’t sure if he should tell Ennoshita that aside from his teachers, no one calls him that. But it doesn’t really matter, he thinks, and lets it be. 

Ennoshita shifts his weight to one side, slight and almost escaping Kenma’s attention again, though he doesn’t move from where he stands – in the middle of the hallway, half a turn from stepping aside in either direction. “May I sit with you for a bit?” he asks. “I had a book, but it’s too dark in the school to read, even with the moonlight, and I can’t help but feel like the doors are going to lock behind me if I go outside.”

 _Lock?_ The doors to the courtyard don’t lock on their own, and no one else is around. Maybe it’s the bugs. Or something else entirely. The classrooms not currently filled with sports bags and sprawled bedding also have lights, after all, and Ennoshita is still smiling, though whether it is in amusement or not, Kenma cannot tell for sure. He raises his shoulders, just enough to be an answer. “If you want,” he says. “I don’t mind.”

And contrary to Kenma’s usual instinct, he finds that he doesn’t. There are some things he doesn’t understand about Ennoshita, like his strange humor, or not-humor; his pleasant demeanor, and the way his hesitance flicks into view at unexpected times, only to smooth away, inconspicuous, gone as quickly as it arrives. But Kenma doesn’t mind his calm, self-contained presence, nor the way he offers his words, like he’s comfortable not needing any in return. 

There is room on the second step for both of them, and Ennoshita sits down in much the same way that he stood earlier – a short distance away, taking up no more space than necessary. He doesn’t say anything else as Kenma unpauses his game, only looks curiously at the screen without leaning over to see. 

The hallway is quiet again, and as their silence settles around them, weightless, it is easy for Kenma to turn back to the battle in hand.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


In the peculiar way that first meetings seem to multiply, all at once, Ennoshita seems to appear whenever Kenma isn’t looking for him. 

He is covering his yawn with his back of his hand, sitting with his own tray of breakfast a few tables away from where Kenma is mostly not listening to Lev as he tells Shouyou about his latest dream. 

He is pushing a ball cart out onto the courts while Kenma trudges into the gymnasium in the wake of Fukunaga’s noiseless, eager steps. 

He is sliding open the door to the bathroom just as Kenma reaches out to do the same from the opposite side; he is stepping back, then forward with a _sorry, Kozume-kun, hello,_ and a light laugh that eases away the awkwardness in Kenma’s throat. 

He is making calls from the sidelines, and gasping for air after diving around the court, and smiling at his teammates as he talks to them with a water bottle in his hand. 

There are well over a hundred people at this camp, and Ennoshita doesn’t seem to stand out, not in appearance, nor in ability; but somehow, among all the loud movements and endless activity and players who show off their strength like their arms are full of firecrackers, Kenma keeps noticing his presence anyway. 

He doesn’t know how he feels about it, but it isn’t exactly a terrible development, and so, Kenma thinks, he doesn’t really mind this, either.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Kenma might be used to the physical toll he endures from their frequent and vigorous joint practices, but it is one thing to know the feeling, and another to _feel_ it. 

Pink welts darken into bruises along his forearms, and they will sting again tomorrow, a new set of reminders every time he completes a block the way he’s meant to. As his body slows down for the night, a deep, sore burn comes to rest like a blanket over his skin, seeping through his muscles from his shoulders to his calves. 

_If it aches, it means I’ve done good,_ Kuroo likes to say, as he sinks into the printed cloth of a train seat on their way home. Kenma, who holds his own private sort of pride in doing a good job without pushing himself beyond what he _needs_ to do, has never come to understand that particular appeal. 

He is sitting on the second step, stretching his legs out in front of him, when Ennoshita walks down the moonlit hall and pauses before the foot of the stairs. On the edge of either staying or going, he smiles in greeting. 

“May I?” he asks, his words measured but light, and Kenma nods, wordlessly. 

A soft, clean scent tickles briefly under Kenma’s nose, white soap and deodorant that dissipates as Ennoshita sits down, resting his arms on his knees. There are a handful of bruises slapped and scattered below his elbows, too, their contrast against his skin as striking as those under his half-closed eyes. Kenma wonders, but he does not ask. 

Ennoshita seems content, here, within the gentle cover of night, to simply park himself in a space built for moving between one scene and the next, to not speak if there is nothing to talk about. But when Kenma looks a bit closer, around the corner of his vision, as he does – he sees the faint slump in the natural bend of Ennoshita’s back, the slow curl of his fingers as he weaves them together; a basket, a cup, a sieve. 

He lets his observations fall away, and immerses himself back into the uncomplicated glow of the game in his hands. 

He is running across a dirt-stained field below a murky sky, dodging as wooden fronts rise up around him.

Combo and K.O. counts tick steadily upward with every successful series of hits, and Kenma gains experience points from each kill. In one corner of the screen, under the health and _musou_ power bars, the special attack gauge gradually fills with light, curving beneath his character avatars like the waiting blade of a scythe. When the charge is complete, he doesn’t use it right away – his patience is as valuable to his attack as the combinations he presses in from the quickest part of his memory, and so he waits, the blinking meter a prompt with no mark of urgency, for a chance to do the most damage. 

He makes his move when he is situated just before a particularly large mob of enemies. One well-timed click, and the flashy, devastating threefold attack rushes outward without any further direction. 

Kenma stills his fingers, satisfied. The two other members of his team leap around him, each tremendous sweep of their weapons knocking out several demons at once, and behind them, his current character manipulates his _shikigami_ into a crackling whirlwind of electricity that blazes through those still upright from the first onslaught. 

“That’s pretty cool,” comes Ennoshita’s voice, and a small shockwave tingles up Kenma’s spine. He pauses the game on reflex, looks up and sideways, through his fringe, away again. 

“Ah— sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Ennoshita is saying. His shoulders have relaxed, his hands motionless where they rest, wrists crossed, in the space between his knees. He smiles, well-worn and plain, as he looks back at Kenma. “You’re good at this.” 

“The game?” He is. 

“Yeah. But I also meant, you’re good at working with a team.” The whisper is almost gone from Ennoshita’s voice, though it lingers around the quiet edges of it, still within reach. He takes a breath, tilts his head toward Kenma’s PSP. “Like switching characters just before their health gets too low to continue fighting at full strength. Switching back when they’ve had enough time to recharge... The timing of each of their attacks is different, but no matter who you’re playing as, you hardly get hit in return. And that bit of animation just now, that simultaneous attack, you held off on using it until you were nearly surrounded. It’s… pretty cool, to see you in action, like this.” 

Kenma can feel his heartbeat in the silence that follows. He wonders at how Ennoshita has noticed all of this, and when, but despite the warm, itchy surprise that has spread to the backs of his ears, it isn’t that difficult to believe. Kenma knows quiet, after all, as well as he knows the sight of train passengers through the thin curtain of his hair, and Ennoshita – his features are uncovered, but he is quiet, too. 

“I’m not…” Kenma trails off. “I’ve been playing this game for a while. I know what each of them can do.” There isn’t much more to it than that. 

“I guess it doesn’t seem like a lot,” Ennoshita says, “and on the court, everything moves so fast that it’s easy to miss if I’m not paying attention. But here, I can see how you lead them, from behind the scenes.” 

Kenma looks down at his fingers, wrapped loosely around his PSP. He knows the weight of it, the exact position of every button, the function each fulfills in every game he owns; these are as familiar to him as the fleeting press of a volleyball against his hands, the angle and amount of force he needs to apply to carry out his determined purpose. But aside from sharing strategies when they are called for, he holds his observations close, keeps his conclusions to himself. He does not spare any unnecessary movement. 

He isn’t quite sure how to feel, that Ennoshita has looked past his stillness to see the whir of thought and reaction in his mind, and that his only response is an appreciation that seems strange, given outside a team Kenma has known for more than a year. 

Ennoshita has turned forward, shifting to look out the window, sitting no closer and no further than before. A brief chill plays at the center of Kenma’s neck as his heartbeat settles. 

In the courtyard, a handful of moths swarms around the subtle glow of the lamppost. Held away by the diffuser that encases its light bulb, they continue circling, fluttering around and back, certain of the moon within the glass. 

The only sound now is that of their breathing, two different paces overlapping softly in the hall. Kenma turns the night’s words around in his memory. When Ennoshita speaks, his voice is pleasant, straightforward; like a narrator, he offers understanding, and expects nothing in answer. Perhaps this, and the idea that _this_ can’t be all there is to him, is the reason Kenma thinks he might want to understand Ennoshita, too.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


His egg is runny, and the peppered white of it collapses into a bright, warm yellow as he mixes it into his rice. Kenma takes a bite, lets the sleep-tinged chatter in the cafeteria filter through his ears, and settles on the conversation happening at his side. 

“I’m a first year, too!” Shouyou is saying, pointing his thumb toward the center of his chest. His other hand shovels his chopsticks into his bowl, one too full to so much as slide across his tray from the impact. “What position do you play?” 

“Libero,” Shibayama answers, smiling easily back as Shouyou makes a noise of what is probably admiration, muffled by the mouthful of greens stuffed in his cheeks. 

“ _Wow,_ ” Shouyou says, when he’s made space for the word. “Then, are you really good at receives?” 

Shibayama blinks, hardly hesitates for a second. He sits up a little straighter, keeps his hands in his lap as he says, “Well, all of my teammates are, especially Yaku-san, so I need to do my best to keep up! They might not need me now, but I can’t just wait until they do before I work as hard as I can to meet them.” 

Shouyou’s smile is as guileless as always. “I see!” he says, and Kenma knows he does. 

As they continue talking around bites of cold tofu and brimming spoonfuls of soup, Kenma lets their conversation pass around him, an earnest, cheerful stream unimpeded by his silence. He thinks about how it had taken Yaku and Tora _weeks_ to figure out the reason Shibayama seemed to feel unsure, sometimes, when he first joined the team, and how immediately he has just shared this part of himself with Shouyou, within a few minutes of meeting him for the first time. 

But after all, Kenma remembers, it had been the same for him, hadn’t it? When he’d sat down at an intersection between unknown streets, a chain-link fence at his back, and waited for someone to find him – Shouyou had been unexpected, but not unwelcome, and even now, he continues to surprise Kenma all the time. What they share is simple, comfortable, in a different way than Kenma has with Kuroo, a different way than he has with his teammates, and with his family, and Kenma has let all of them flow around him like displaced air from so many pendulums, without resisting or trying to unravel their intentions. 

At this new crossroads, he isn’t sure if he knows how to do the finding, himself.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


The sun has long dipped past the trees surrounding Shinzen and under the horizon beyond them, but even in the darkened hallway, the heat of the day has yet to completely disappear. In summer, humid nights cover Kenma’s skin like an unneeded sheet that feels heavier than it should; the thin, sweaty air folds itself into every centimeter of his body until he has the urge to push it away, to turn his face to a cooler side. Here, of course, there isn’t one. The wall of the stairwell is warm against his temple, and Kenma lets out his breath in a resigned _whoosh_ , blowing his hair off his nose. 

Next to him, Ennoshita laughs his quiet laugh, low and invariable, easily forgotten. Kenma tucks the sound of it away with the others. In time, he thinks, he might find the differences between them. 

He turns his focus back to the bright screen of his PSP, scans the selection map, and chooses his next battle. 

“Kozume-kun,” Ennoshita says, as Kenma presses at the triangle button. “Do you always skip through the introduction?”

There might be a smile in his voice; Kenma doesn’t look over to see. His tone is light, maybe amused, and a noncommittal hum lies in automatic answer at the back of Kenma’s tongue. He leaves it there, silent. For now, he lets the dialogue on the screen type itself out in its entirety, and in one corner, the small triangle indicator blinks, waiting. 

“I don’t need to read it,” Kenma says. “It’s the same thing every time.” 

“In every game?”

“Yes.” Kenma does glance up, this time, and around the edge of his hair he catches the tail end of Ennoshita’s grin, the faint creases at the side of his mouth. 

“Well,” Ennoshita says, looking down at his hands, “I hope my own introductions aren’t quite so uninteresting…”

At first, it seems like he is just talking to himself, in his way of thinking aloud, on occasion, as they sit side by side on the second step. If Ennoshita speaks, it is into the skeletal, reserved night like he’s leaving an aimless trail of smoke, like he expects his voice to soon vanish down the empty hall. But this, Kenma comes to realize, is a shield, too. Where Kenma withdraws, keeps his thoughts closed and level as a one-sided test run in his mind, Ennoshita ventures outward, his mild words an opening in conversation that he leaves, purposefully, for another person to pick up on – only if they choose. 

Conversation is a battle Kenma usually forgoes, but here is a tentative chance to find something new, and Ennoshita has a kind of presence that doesn’t exhaust him. So he lets the _next_ prompt keep blinking at the end of its line; turns his head, so his eyes are no longer hidden. 

For all that he had trailed off not a minute earlier in humble, clear indication that there was more he wanted to say, Ennoshita looks surprised that Kenma is waiting for him to continue. If it were day, and Kenma could see more of his face than the intimation of shadows defining it, there might even be a soft pink beneath his cheekbone, as though Kenma’s brief attention could leave a physical mark to bloom across his skin. 

“Sometimes I write screenplays,” Ennoshita says, with an open smile that makes every one that came before it seem merely a shuttered light. Sleepless bruises are still smudged under his eyes, but now, Kenma thinks, he doesn’t look tired at all. “Different genres, different settings. Different characters— I wonder if, after a while, everything turns out to be the same thing. But even if they do, I like making up stories. I like watching movies, and strangers in public places, and borrowing a little from each of them to make something different. And then, whenever my friends get involved, if we have time, I like directing them, too.” 

Kenma tries to take this in, takes a few unrushed breaths to adjust his impression of Ennoshita, walking evenly through his mind. He wonders, and this time, he asks. “You make films?” 

“When we can.” Ennoshita grins. “You might be surprised, but my teammates are actually pretty good at bringing a script to life.” 

“…I’m not,” Kenma says, thinking back to the day’s matches, and those before, and every moment he has watched them in between. Even during their team penalties, their energy does not seem to fade; during games, determination gives way to unruly noise that changes back to unyielding, raw intensity, quicker than a ball hitting the floor. It isn’t difficult for Kenma to imagine them in front of a running camera, written movements bursting beyond the frame. Except— 

“Once they focus, anyway,” Ennoshita adds, and Kenma feels the corner of his mouth nudge upward in agreement. It is barely a smile, but Ennoshita stops talking, a few breaths longer than his usual pause between thoughts, and he probably catches it anyway. “They’ve helped me a lot with my experimental stories,” he says, turning his gaze away, toward a memory Kenma cannot see. “And I think we all have fun with the filming part of it. The editing part, a bit less, maybe, because there’s always so much extra footage to work through… But when it all comes together, the video and music and scene shifts and everything, it’s really satisfying, in the end.”

Kenma nods. The raised keys of his PSP are as worn as grooves in leather, grounding under his fingertips. He recalls the feeling of attacks _coming together_ by his hand, held back from the spotlight, part of the production nonetheless, and another memory slots softly into place. “Behind the scenes,” he says, thinking that Ennoshita will understand what he means. 

He does. His eyes widen, meeting Kenma’s with a slightest tilt to his head. “You remember,” he says, and his voice lifts like he’s found something unexpected, waiting within the shallow depths of the hallway around them. 

Kenma glances down, where the dark, steady outline of the window frame stretches across the floor at their feet, and up again, where Ennoshita is looking back at him. Reflective consideration composes his expression, but it isn’t a _reflection_ , who Kenma has come to know. Ennoshita doesn’t have to try, in order to be inconspicuous, nor does he seem to give immobilizing weight to the impressions other people may have of him. He is a solid frame to a screenless window, his thoughts passing on a breeze, carrying themselves by to hide in plain sight. And here, under the modest veil of night, the thin armor beneath Kenma’s skin dares to crack in answer, just enough to let the moonlight through. 

He sits still, watches Ennoshita with a careful, flickering curiosity. It’s getting easier and easier to be seen in return. 

“I didn’t really understand what you meant,” Kenma says, “about me leading my team. But I think I get it now. When you film… you’re their setter.” 

Ennoshita laughs, true and soft and wonderful. “Sometimes,” he says, “I write characters with certain people already in mind. I know what my teammates can do. So I write a script that they can take their cues from, and trust them to follow through with the rest.” The smile he directs at Kenma now widens for only a blink, but its warmth lingers, subtle and knowing, in the calm they share between them. “When you play, your team listens to you, even as each of them brings their own skills to the court. And you make sure their connections hold together… It’s incredible to watch, Kozume-kun.” 

For a moment, Kenma considers. Something stirs in his chest, a whisper of wings upon a glass door, nudged open from the inside. “You don’t have to,” he starts. “Just Kenma’s fine.” 

Nebulous but unrestrained, Ennoshita’s grin could be a sliver of the moon. “Okay,” is all he says, and between Kenma’s ribs, the fluttering lingers. 

Kenma doesn’t have to wonder, anymore, how Ennoshita notices things that should be too fleeting to observe. He understands, inexplicably, as though Ennoshita has walked into a station Kenma has been sitting in for years. He thinks, it’s probably like this for both of them: perception, weightless conversation, and silhouettes cast onto the floor like a reel only visible from their second step. 

Some things, Kenma knows, can be carried away in the rush of train cars or moving figures or, at the right time, with the right company: a voice in its element. To reach through the surface of that stream, to look past what is _necessary_ – this is an action unfamiliar to him. But here, Kenma finds, there is little threat to guard against; there is plenty of space to breathe. 

They stay out on the stairwell until unstifled yawns overtake their quiet words. 

When they part ways, it is with another smile from Ennoshita as he bids him good night, and another nod from Kenma, before they turn to walk back to their team’s respective rooms. The screen of Kenma’s PSP displays the same image as it did hours ago, a single line of dialogue complete and unadvanced within its box. He hasn’t made any progress in his game, tonight, but as he slides the console safely into his bag and lies down on top of his futon, a wisp of contentment remains to curl around his tired muscles, light and steady, leading him to sleep.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


“Kenma, are you running away again?” 

Kuroo is grinning; Kenma can hear it as he ducks his head to walk around him, away from Shouyou’s bright calls for _your toss, Kenma! Just a few!_ and toward the relative safety of the warm, sticky evening outside the gymnasium doors. It’s the same lopsided delight that takes him back – to bedroom doors slamming open, and desk drawers revealing neat, chronological rows of video games; to a borrowed volleyball sailing between his hands and hitting him in the head, and the press of a green and white uniform into his pink-blotched palms. 

These are the memories of every passive decision that has led him to stand here, sweat cooling too slowly across his back and fabric chafing his skin, at the end of another too long day of practice. Kenma shakes them off. There’s no time to reminisce, or to mildly regret, while he’s trying to make his escape. 

“No.” 

He lifts his chin with a practiced glare – he was right – but before Kuroo can respond, a shout rings across the courts. 

“Look out!” 

A ball is spinning toward him, green blurring into the white and red of an instinctual flinch, but even in the subdued gymnasium, Kenma is still on guard; he gets his hand up in time to keep the ball from hitting his face. 

With a stinging _smack_ , it bounces harmlessly away, rolling across the floor and into Ennoshita’s hands. 

“Sorry about that,” he says, slightly short of breath. His voice is louder than usual, drawn out from hiding behind his equable tone by a day of overflowing clamor. The apology doesn’t quite cover up his amusement at Kenma’s startled expression, though, and Kenma narrows his eyes at him, just to see the moment his smile breaks off. 

It is only a moment; Ennoshita soon catches on that Kenma isn’t being serious, and he laughs, moving closer, instead of turning back to where he and his teammates are running through variations of their synchronized attack. 

He doesn’t stray too far from his place on that temporary court, but his gaze settles, soft focus on a question Kenma recognizes anew, in the sufficient, utilitarian light of the gymnasium. 

“I’ll see you later?” Ennoshita asks, as if he could still be uncertain of the answer. 

Kenma nods. “Okay,” he says, for the bright flash of _something else_ in Ennoshita’s face before he returns to his team. 

Kuroo had watched their exchange without a word, but Kenma expects a comment is surely waiting, keen and oblique, on the razor curve of his tongue. 

“You’re smiling,” he says, demonstrating. 

Kenma sighs. “I’m not.” 

“You’re not,” Kuroo agrees, and his reply is so unprecedented that for a few seconds, Kenma can only stare. The jagged shadow over Kuroo’s eyes from his fringe belies the way their sharp glint can gentle; he pitches his voice lower to carry just far enough to reach Kenma’s ears, passing under the sporadic squeaks and thuds of practices that continue around them. “But you’re not frowning, either.” He grins, leaving it at that. 

Kenma hums in return, short and evasive as he takes his chance to exit the gymnasium. Kuroo will be staying late to play three-on-threes again, he knows, and the rest of his teammates probably aren’t going to head back into the school just yet. Footsteps masked under a crickets’ chorus, Kenma turns onto the path that leads to Shinzen’s main building, thinking of a cool shower, a warm dinner, and afterward.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


On the last day, the sun bears down stronger than ever. Where smoke isn’t rising from the grills, the air shimmers, an illusion of clear, quenching water above them. Even sitting as far away as he can manage without deserting the barbecue altogether, Kenma feels like his hair is singeing in the heat. 

He passes time with a mindless game on his phone, shooting at colored bubbles with more colored bubbles, watching them pop in unison. The rough concrete step is warm on the underside of his thighs. 

Kenma had woken up tired, grumbling protests at Shibayama and Inuoka’s cheerful insistence that it was a _good morning, Kenma-san! _, his entire body sore and stiff as he dragged himself upright. Hours later, the ache has yet to return, but Kenma knows he’ll feel it when he next wakes from sleep; if not on the bus, in the Nekoma parking lot, then tomorrow, back at home. And at least tomorrow, he can sleep a little longer. His sheets will be cool on his skin, and in the quiet of his bedroom, the crowded, irregular commotion of this week will fade into a generic recollection, a scrapbook of noise he won’t revisit until their next joint training.__

__Even so, Kenma thinks, as another group of bubbles disappears at the top of his screen, his relief isn’t as simple as he’s used to. There are parts of camp that he won’t be completely glad to leave behind, this time._ _

____

  
  
  
  
  


Shouyou munches happily through another slice of watermelon, catching the juice on the back of his hand. He hasn’t gotten the hang of spitting the seeds out, though not for lack of trying; the grass in front of his crossed legs is littered with them. 

“’S so good,” he says, beaming around his last bite. “I don’t think I’d ever get tired of watermelon; I could eat another five pieces!”

“D’you want to?” Lev’s excitement is loud and immediate, as if he’s just discovered another point of comparison between them. “I bet I could have another six!” 

Shouyou leaps to his feet, brandishing his watermelon rinds like he intends to take them into battle. “You’re on!” he says. His hair burns in the approaching dusk, a match to the sky behind him. “Kenma, do you want any more?”

Kenma smiles back. “No, I’m okay.” 

He watches as Shouyou runs toward the row of plastic bags stuffed and discarded along the gymnasium wall, tucks the sight of him safely into his memory. In the moment’s stillness, he imagines his own heartbeat, quick and resolute as Shouyou’s racing footprints on the ground.

  
  
  
  
  


He hasn’t seen Ennoshita since earlier that afternoon, in one of their last practice sets, but for a passing glimpse during dinner as Kenma sat on the concrete steps, stowing his phone behind his waistband and methodically clearing the few _onigiri_ from his plate. Now, on the side of a hill, he looks down toward the soft blades of grass tickling his skin. He wonders if they’ll meet somewhere else, before their teams leave; wonders what he might say, if they do. 

The day’s swelter lessens considerably while Kenma wishes for the humid air to lift. He unbends his legs and stretches, idle, as sunlit branches turn to shadows above him. It is there, seated apart from the easy chatter building amicably among the others, that Ennoshita finds him, and sits beside him without a word. 

Like an echo, Kenma feels the rustle of shoes settling against the ground as a light, pleasant shiver in his chest. He looks over to see Ennoshita smile. 

For a minute, or ten, or more still, they sit in comfortable silence; only the cicadas, hidden within the trees, endeavor to fill the air with their rasping melody. But Kenma knows that Ennoshita’s quiet isn’t the same as his own, and he waits, patient, for the sound of his thoughts. 

In time, Ennoshita speaks. “The week’s already over…”

Slowly, Kenma rotates his ankle, tilts his foot back. The brief pull leaves pinpricks tingling along his shin. He lets out a hum. 

“I didn’t get to play in many sets, but…” Ennoshita lowers his head in a small huff, not quite a laugh, despite the gentle curve of his lips, despite the tension in his cheeks. “I haven’t worked this hard since last year.”

His elbows rest on his knees, and Kenma watches the unobtrusive movement of his fingers, crossed in front of him like the final adjustment before a photograph. The faint redness on his forearms might be sunburn.

Ennoshita glances over, casts his eyes back down – then up again, toward the still-hot grills and last conversations under the dimming sky. 

“When I first joined the volleyball club,” he says, “we didn’t have a coach. Practices were almost like they were in middle school, just warmup laps and drills and playing against each other in groups. It was fun. 

“But a few months later, the previous coach came back – our current coach’s grandfather; I think he and your coach are old friends. With him leading us, suddenly our practices weren’t fun anymore. They became really tough. Even more so because it was summer, and we practiced for nearly half of every day during vacation. Like our own training camp. He was strong, and he worked us really hard, and… I couldn’t handle it. And I quit.”

Ennoshita laughs, soft and fleeting, as though it is a reaction he expects – not from Kenma, but perhaps others, if they heard him; as though he is preemptively joining in. 

Kenma is silent. His muscles are tight and tired against his bones, even as he sits, motionless, understanding. 

Then: “Me, too.”

In his periphery, he sees Ennoshita turn his head to look at him. 

“Last year, I wanted to quit, too.” 

There are tiny furrows in the smooth skin of Ennoshita’s forehead, creases that had appeared when he first spoke. Now, at Kenma’s even words, they vanish; when they return a moment later, they mark a different sort of question. 

The frayed laces of Kenma’s shoes sway gently in the breeze as he answers. “Practice was harder than in middle school,” he says. “The team was different, too. There were a lot more people, and those who were oldest liked to look down on the first years. It was difficult.” 

“But you stayed,” Ennoshita says. There is barely an inflection in his low, deliberate tone. 

Kenma nods. “But… It was still hard. Even after the third years left. Some days, I still wanted to quit.”

“Why didn’t you?” 

“For my friends,” Kenma says. “Kuro told me not to quit, and that the team would be stronger with me.” He reaches out with a finger, rubs lightly at a smudge on his knee. “He was right, I guess.” 

Ennoshita is facing forward again, an almost unnoticeable slump in the set of his shoulders. He doesn’t say anything. 

The cicadas call to each other, unceasing, as Kenma thinks. 

“Why did you go back?” he asks. 

Ennoshita smiles. “For myself,” he says. “I realized that even more than I didn’t want to run in the heat, I wanted to play. I wanted to feel the sting on my arms when I managed to get the receive just right. And if I had to keep diving for the ball until my head was spinning and I was desperate for air, I thought, well. It’d all be worth it, to have that feeling again.” 

Kenma looks at him, sideways. “That’s kind of…” 

“Masochistic,” Ennoshita agrees, and his laugh seems closer to his usual, though it soon fades again. “But it wasn’t like I imagined it would be, when I returned. Something had happened to the coach, sent him to the hospital, and I didn’t even know until the day I walked back into the gym.” He looks down at his folded hands. “I kept practicing, but… It wasn’t the same. It couldn’t be, after I ran away.” 

It isn’t in Kenma’s nature to offer reassurances. He isn’t interested in moderating his words, isn’t sure how, when it is out of his control, how they will be taken or perceived. 

Still, his judgment is sound, whether he speaks his mind or not, and there are some things he does know. Kenma glances at Ennoshita, makes sure to meet his eyes, for this. 

“We’re both here, now.” 

Nearby, someone else’s laughter scatters like a handful of coals, cascading over another conversation. The weight of it tumbles off Ennoshita’s shoulders as his chest lifts in a bare, gentle breath. 

“Yes,” he says. “I guess we are.” 

Their skin cools by unhurried degrees in the faint wind that passes through the school grounds. The shadow of the gymnasium wall inches further and further across the trampled grass before them, hiding hundreds of strewn and overlooked watermelon seeds in its tempering reach. However dark it is, though, it isn’t impossible to see. 

As they wait for their last day to come to an end, Kenma sits still, Ennoshita a level, warm presence beside him, and lets himself relax under the sun’s modest advance toward its next dawn.

  
  
  


* * *

* * *

  
  
  


Kenma’s hair is still a little damp from his shower; he runs a hand through it as he lies down on his side, so it splays across his pillow instead of itching at his neck. 

A particular sort of scent is present and gone as soon as he recognizes it, comfortably threadbare and lived-in. Like a nameless melody with an indefinite source, it sneaks up on him when he isn’t expecting it – a wisp from the imperceptible spaces between his t-shirts, from the washed and waiting sheets in the linen closet. 

_Okaeri,_ his mother had said when he’d come home, sweaty and yawning, just a few hours ago. She’d smiled at him, and given the briefest glance to the bag he’d dropped in the entryway as he put away his shoes, knowing he would take care of it without a word from either of them. It was like he hadn’t left at all.

His mattress isn’t particularly soft, but coming back to it after a week of sleeping on a classroom floor makes him feel a bit like he’s sinking into a grounded cloud. He curls his knees up, bare feet sliding over the cool folds of his covers. Close before the walls, his books and game cases line his shelves in uncluttered stacks that rest, neutral and familiar, in the fringes of his vision.

The lights embedded in his ceiling are set just bright enough to read by. Kenma tries not to look for too long at the pale, textured face staring out from the shiny jacket of his borrowed novel; the girl’s skin is smudged with blood, which doesn’t really bother him, but her one visible eye is all iris, cloudy blue with an ominous figure darkening its wide surface instead of a pupil, and it’s more than a little creepy. 

He flips past the title pages of Ayatsuji Yukito’s _Another_ , anticipating the mystery with a slight curiosity of association. 

_A film adaptation’s going to be released next Saturday,_ Ennoshita had explained before they left Shinzen, as he showed Kenma what he’d been trying to read on that first night. _I wanted to reread the book before I go to see it_. 

Kenma had looked at him, then back at the spidering veins on the cover of the book. Despite himself, he’d spared a vague thought that he hadn’t really expected Ennoshita to enjoy horror stories in his free time. (Later, Ennoshita, with an understated, kindred pride and a rather less subtle kind of excitement, told him about one of the screenplays he was working on, that he’d set in an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere and proceeded to fill with as many _repurposed_ exorcism-related happenings as he could manage. The thought soon vanished.) 

_Then why are you lending it to me?_ Kenma had asked. 

And, in an unadorned moment, Ennoshita had answered, _Because you haven’t read it yet_. 

Kenma settles into his bed, resting the book next to his face, so he doesn’t have to hold it up himself. 

Around seventy pages in, he finds a blank strip of paper tucked against the inner crease of the spine. Its factory-cut ends are only three; one side seems to have been folded and torn away from its original sheet, leaving a straight, careful edge with just the slightest break where a tiny piece has snagged off. Kenma runs his finger along the fuzzy line of it until he meets that odd indent, and, somewhere invisible, feels himself smile. 

He keeps the plain white bookmark safe within the pages as he reads.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Fall can’t come quickly enough, Kenma thinks, fixing his eyes on the screen of his PSP while he drags his feet on the hot pavement. There are no trees on this side of the street, only occasional telephone poles that cast insubstantial shadows across his own as he passes, and he is unable to find even the thinnest reprieve from the burning afternoon sun. But he’s well into his second year of walking along this path – he has never before bothered to cross over to the further sidewalk, and he isn’t going to do so today, either. 

Not even if the weight of his bag is stifling against his back; nor if he’s sure his sweat has soaked through the thick fabric and made the ink run in his textbooks. 

“Haven’t you played that game already?” Kuroo asks, languid and nonchalant, as he looks over Kenma’s shoulder. 

Kenma conjures a whirlwind of fire, keeping his seat on the back of his horse and wiping out the small mob of enemies in front of him. “On PlayStation,” he says, and directs his character across a different wooden bridge. 

The explosive sound effects of slashing weapons, dramatic dialogue, and gunfire overtake the pounding, electric drumbeat and guitar of the game’s background music. More immediate than them all, Kuroo’s laugh rings low and easy in Kenma’s ears. “I can’t believe you,” he says, soft delight in his voice, and straightens, his footsteps matching Kenma’s as they walk back from the station, on their way to spend the rest of the afternoon with their respective schoolwork overlapping on the same table. 

Kenma has passed a 510 K.O. count for his current level when Kuroo next speaks into their quiet. 

“We don’t have long until the final preliminary,” he says. “Two and a half months isn’t that far away at all.” 

His tone is one Kenma knows well, a wide grin within momentary gravity, as though he can see the glint of the sun high behind an unfastened gate, and will barely squint as he runs through the grass to meet it. Kuroo loves the sport too much, to close his eyes for even a second. 

And although it would be over in a blink, if they let their guard down, there is no urgency to their team’s training. Gradual, careful, one play at a time, as they always have – Kenma has felt Kuroo’s resolve at his side since the first insistent crash of his bedroom door; he observes its echo and pulse in the movements of their teammates, recognizes its hunger in one that rushes like a flare toward a boundless horizon, understands its strength in another’s humble, enduring return. 

The worn soles of Kenma’s shoes shuffle roughly against the concrete, catching on stray pebbles and accidentally flicking them into the side of the road. His arms are exhausted, from lengthy, repeated drills, from holding his PSP within his line of sight. Every step sends up new awareness of the ache in his knees, the uncooled tension he carries from his ankles to his wrists. He keeps walking. 

Here, now, upon shared ground, Kenma thinks that one day, he might be steady on his feet, too.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


It is right on schedule, probably, when the doors close behind the last of this station’s additional passengers. The train advances smoothly from its standstill after a heartbeat’s jolt, and through the border of the window, restless outlines of other waiting commuters blur into the pillars of the unmoving platform. 

Crossing her legs as she sits, a woman unclasps her bag and pulls out a creased, heavy-looking paperback. Kenma fleets a few glances through his fringe and across the aisle, but he can’t quite make out the cover. The sleek frames of her glasses are even more vibrant than her hair, and she reaches up to adjust them every so often. From the corner of his eye, Kenma watches her read – after a while, she ceases the motion, and keeps her hand still, poised on the edge of the next page.

Below the low hum of the air vent, Kenma’s shoulders tighten with a brief, involuntary shiver. In the last weeks of September, it’s finally getting cooler, but even though he walks through the comfortable morning air with great relief and perhaps a smaller amount of lethargy than usual, this transitory part of the season means that no one can agree on whether the air conditioning is still needed or not. 

Kenma moves his collar closer around his neck, slips his phone out from his jacket pocket. 

Beside him, Kuroo has leaned his messy head back against the window and folded his arms across the front of his neatly pressed uniform. He is most likely a minute or so away from nodding off. It’s fine, though; in unvoiced agreement, the two of them are never asleep at the same time when they ride the train together, and Kenma will poke him awake when they arrive at their stop for school. 

_Subject: (no subject)_  
_there’s a woman on the train with hair almost_  
_as bright as yours_

It is a text of little consequence, but months of communicating in this way have made it clear that Shouyou will pick up his words and sprint off with them, anyway. And though the particularities of his response may be unpredictable, Kenma can anticipate his bright interest like a glow from a newborn flame, carrying intangibly over hundreds of kilometers to reach the shelter of his own hand. 

The certainty settles beneath Kenma’s chilled skin as he chances another look around himself, and it spreads its warmth out to twine snugly around his nerves. 

He opens another message screen on his phone. He scrolls up, through focused photos of odd subjects – a plate of sliced sea pineapples, for one; a skull with a crown of woven flowers, for another – and back down, past his answering attachments – slightly shaky, a cat’s tail, vanishing around a brick corner; slightly eaten, a wedge of apple pie. 

There are fewer lines of text on Kenma’s side of the screen, but it isn’t a chore to compose his replies, nor does it ever seem uneven, to either of them. 

He blinks at a recent message, received in the early hours of the morning and opened in a later, still dim bedroom as he’d tried to unclog his mind from sleep. It says something about a film called _Singin’ in the Rain_ , and in his tangential understanding, Kenma locks his phone with an idea to direct his attention toward. 

Next to the woman with the book, every other stranger in the train car seems to fade into a tired mass. Lintless, listless office workers sit alongside their requisite and closed-off bags, all dull shades of the same silent exhibit, the same resolute transience within their facing rows of seats. 

But here and there, flashes of color leak through, and Kenma, through a diaphanous curtain, catches the details in his palm: 

A striped sock, neon and less-neon green, peeking through a gap between brushed leather and dry-cleaned wool; the twinkle of a charm, metal twisted into a symbol he doesn’t recognize, dangling from the strap of a faded shoulder bag; a crooked, backwards knot in someone’s solid blue tie, as if they were accustomed enough to putting it on from scratch every morning and, today, had neglected both a mirror and a cup of coffee. 

He holds onto these sightings for just the time it takes to observe them, then lets them fall gently from the ends of his fingers. They hit the floor of the train, soundless, unnoticed by all but himself. Or, maybe, not _unnoticed_ , Kenma thinks, but only unremarked upon, in the fleeting stream of moments past. He watches, carefully, never for too long, waiting for a glimpse of the end of the game he has decided to play. 

And at the next station, Kenma finds— 

Someone is holding an umbrella. 

It isn’t even supposed to rain today, which is why he’d chosen this small goal for himself, and the dry, plain black nylon swishes against the man’s suit as he boards the train and stands in place before the opposite seat, looking down at his phone. 

With a light hand, Kenma sets his own at a sidelong angle, takes a photograph that will express his untyped question.

_Subject: RE: death by choreography_  
_Attachment: IMG_047_

Reply sent, Kenma returns his phone to his pocket. He tilts his head back to rest next to Kuroo’s, feels the low vibrations of the window as the train rolls onward over its routine tracks. Unoccupied handholds sway minutely before laminate advertisements, and Kenma closes his eyes, listening for the smooth, practiced voice that announces each station, and to the rustle of newspaper pages in other people’s hands.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


The sun is still high over the gymnasiums at Shinzen as everyone gathers over cracking asphalt to see Karasuno off. With a much longer drive back, they’ve already packed all of their bags, zipped them shut and loaded them onto their bus; the one thing left is to wait for their coaches and advisors to finish their last meeting. 

In the crisp breeze that sends creased, fallen leaves in a tumble through the crowded parking lot, Kenma feels the prickle of thin hair rising on his arms. His cheeks are flushed with exertion, and he ducks his head, pushing his fringe away from the side of his face.

Only a few clouds hang in the bright sky, motionless, unreachable, except from the top of a tall enough stairwell. If such a path existed, though, Kenma would rather keep his feet on the ground. From here, where he stands, he turns his gaze upward, to touch a cotton edge; marvels briefly at the impermanent shape of it, and how it will change, inevitably, as he looks away. 

Kenma knows: there is plenty to reach toward without climbing for the sky, and he holds close the promise of a match like no other, its spark catching on the steel of his ribs, beneath the sweat drying on his skin. He runs their words over in his mind, one more and one more time, as they last, a tap of anticipation that remains to challenge his even heartbeat. 

Before they part, Kenma looks across to the bus, raises his hand in answer to Shouyou’s leaping farewell. He glances to the side, behind the others, and meets familiar, half-open eyes, a variable smile he has begun to learn. 

Tentative, careful as always, Kenma lets the loud excitement flow through his limbs – flashes of vivid and mismatched practice clothes, shouts like preemptive battle cries, all clashing in a chaotic chorus around him. He doesn’t smile too wide, doesn’t think too far ahead, but the indistinct boundary of the future stretches into view, within grasp of his rough fingers, between final, decisive dates found and marked in spiral planners. And when he looks back at Ennoshita, when he thinks of choices and conversations that have led both of them here – he knows his soft, unruffled surety as a counterpart to his own. 

There are odds that Kenma could count, if he wanted to spend the time to predict them. For now, he stands next to Kuroo and watches Karasuno’s team members board their bus, follows the rumble of their engine as they begin to drive home. 

He breathes in, the afternoon air fresh and cool in his nose. It’s still early. The nets will stay set up for hours yet. He resigns himself to those hours, but clear in his thoughts are the walls they are building past; free of regret, unbound by uncertainties, and with his teammates, he walks back toward the gymnasium, where the sunlight glints off its open windows. 

Just before they reach the steps, Kenma turns his head for a moment, faces the empty parking lot. 

_See you soon,_ he thinks, and hopes they will.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> [Kenma's game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warriors_Orochi_3#Musou_Orochi_2_Special) and [Ennoshita's book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_%28novel%29) (a note that an image of the cover is on this wiki page), based on the extrapolation from canon dates and calendars that Haikyuu!! takes place in 2012.
> 
> I have a lot running through my head about how nervous I am about this, but here I'll just say: thank you for giving this a chance, and thank you for reading!


End file.
